[EM] Poll, preliminary ballots

[Michael Ossipoff]

Closed, what is the No Lesser Evils Criterion?

On Thu, Apr 25, 2024 at 12:16 Closed Limelike Curves <
closed.limelike.curves at gmail.com> wrote:

> Here in Oregon we use a pen to fill in empty ovals on a paper ballot.
>
>
> Too many ovals (beyond about seven) per candidate inflates the paper
>> ballot size to unreasonable dimensions.  Already, with just one oval per
>> candidate, the ballot covers both sides of a large paper ballot, and
>> sometimes there are two ballot pages.
>
>
> As a result, ballot "real estate" prevents us from printing as many
>> choice columns as candidates.
>
>
> Worth noting that's not an issue with rated ballots, especially if you use
> more clever arrangements. k^2 ovals is enough to give non-overlapping
> scores to k^k candidates, by having each bubble represent a digit in base
> k. In practice I'd stick to something like 1-5 stars, with options for
> quarter-stars +.25, +.5, +.75; or alternatively use A through F, with +/-
> options. This gives voters the opportunity to assign unique scores for up
> to 18 (!) candidates.
>
> (Rated ballots also open up cardinal-Condorcet hybrids, which can
> outperform ordinal-Condorcet at resolving cycles as Green-Armytage showed.)
>
> On Wed, Apr 24, 2024 at 11:34 AM Richard, the VoteFair guy <
> electionmethods at votefair.org> wrote:
>
>> On 4/22/2024 9:23 AM, Chris Benham wrote:
>>
>>  > Your approach is like that of a quite bad and sloppy designer of a car
>>  > or a plane. Every time it crashes you just stick another kludge on it
>>  > designed to only guard against another crash just like the most
>> recent one.
>>
>> Actually I'm moving a poorly designed car body (fenders, roof, doors,
>> etc) from a poorly designed chassis (wheels, brakes, engine, drive
>> train, etc) to a well-designed chassis (new wheels, new brakes, new
>> engine, new drive train, etc).  Later we can replace the poorly designed
>> body with a better-looking body.  Then we'll have a well-designed car.
>>
>> To clarify, eliminating pairwise losing candidates and using ranked
>> choice ballots is the "chassis" in this analogy.  IRV's rule of assuming
>> the candidate with the fewest highest-ranking marks is least popular is
>> the "body" that isn't well designed.
>>
>>
>>  > For IRV (aka Hare) I am strongly in favour of allowing unlimited strict
>>  > ranking from the top. I was talking about a reasonable relatively
>> benign
>>  > way of dealing with equal-ranking in defiance of the ballot rules. In
>>  > Australia I think the whole ballot is not counted, and binned as
>>  > "informal".  Normally there should be nothing stopping you from ranking
>>  > the most evil candidates strictly below all the others.
>>
>> In Australia your voters write a ranking number (for each candidate) in
>> a box.  So you only need one box per candidate.
>>
>> Here in Oregon we use a pen to fill in empty ovals on a paper ballot.
>>
>> Too many ovals (beyond about seven) per candidate inflates the paper
>> ballot size to unreasonable dimensions.  Already, with just one oval per
>> candidate, the ballot covers both sides of a large paper ballot, and
>> sometimes there are two ballot pages.
>>
>> As a result, ballot "real estate" prevents us from printing as many
>> choice columns as candidates.
>>
>> This limitation, plus the silly rule of not correctly counting two or
>> more marks in the same choice column -- so-called "overvotes" -- stops
>> us from being able to rank all other candidates above our most-disliked
>> candidate.
>>
>>
>>  > Assuming you can pair up all the "over-voting" ballots in this way,
>> this
>>  > seems to be equivalent to dividing the votes up into equal fractions
>>  > that sum to 1.
>>
>> Yes, those of us who understand math recognize that decimal numbers work
>> fine.  But few voters, and very few politicians, understand math.
>> Especially fractions and decimal numbers.
>>
>>  > But what if you can't pair them all off, or someone votes
>>  > more than two candidates at the same ranking level?
>>
>> That error is almost similar to truncating the decimal numbers to the
>> nearest smallest integer.  The "almost" refers to a few ballots that
>> can't be "paired up with" an equivalent preference pattern.
>>
>> That "pairing" also works with three ballots with the same three
>> top-ranked candidates.  And it works with four ballots ranking the same
>> four candidates highest.  Etc.
>>
>>
>>  >>> If there are "failure types" in need of names, what's stopping you
>>  >>> from giving them names? ...
>>
>>  >> Time and money.
>>
>>  > I wasn't talking about for the purpose of discussions in the
>>  > mass media or to get text books or dictionaries changed.  I was
>>  > just talking about just for the purpose of (hopefully
>>  > somewhat rigorous) discussion here.
>>
>> My time is still a huge limiting factor.  I'm juggling lots of projects.
>>   That's why I don't have time to reply to as many messages here as I'd
>> like.
>>
>>
>> Chris, I'm grateful that your messages are well-written.  That makes
>> them easier to reply to.  Thank you for taking the time to write clearly!
>>
>> Richard Fobes
>> The VoteFair guy
>>
>>
>> On 4/22/2024 9:23 AM, Chris Benham wrote:
>> > Richard,
>> >
>> >> Horrible, yes.  Garbage, no, because STAR a clever way to improve
>> >> single-winner score voting.
>> > It trashes Score voting's compliance with Favorite Betrayal and
>> > Participation to gain merely Condorcet Loser. Pure genius. If it is an
>> > attempt to "improve" Score voting (which I have great difficulty
>> > believing) then I don't agree that it qualifies as "clever".
>> >
>> >> > If there are "failure types" in need of names, what's stopping you
>> from
>> >>   > giving them names? ...
>> >>
>> >> Time and money.
>> > I wasn't talking about for the purpose of discussions in the mass media
>> > or to get text books or dictionaries changed.  I was just talking about
>> > just for the purpose of (hopefully somewhat rigorous) discussion here.
>> >
>> >> Our goal is to rise way above plurality.  Accepting limitations of
>> >> plurality is unnecessary.
>> >>
>> >> Why impose any extra strategic burden on the voter?
>> >
>> > I agree that that should be avoided. As you would know if you read my
>> > previous posts here about STAR, the strategic burden it places on the
>> > voter is vastly greater than the one imposed by plurality (aka FPP).
>> >
>> > Both have Compromise incentive while STAR also has very strong
>> Push-over
>> > incentive.
>> >
>> >> > I think it is reasonable to treat ballots that (against the ballot
>> >>   > rules) equal-rank above bottom as though they truncated at that
>> point.
>> >>   > Doing otherwise (as I think you advocate) without a quite complex
>> >>   > procedure I suggest makes the method a bit more vulnerable to
>> Push-over
>> >>   > strategy.
>> >>
>> >> I and most voters want to be able to rank an evil candidate -- Gollum,
>> >> Voldemoron, etc. -- below all other candidates.  Truncation means the
>> >> evil candidate is as acceptable as other "bad" candidates.
>> >>
>> > For IRV (aka Hare) I am strongly in favour of allowing unlimited strict
>> > ranking from the top. I was talking about a reasonable relatively
>> benign
>> > way of dealing with equal-ranking in defiance of the ballot rules. In
>> > Australia I think the whole ballot is not counted, and binned as
>> > "informal".  Normally there should be nothing stopping you from ranking
>> > the most evil candidates strictly below all the others.
>> >
>> >> I've written code that correctly counts so-called "overvotes."  It's
>> not
>> >> a "complex procedure":
>> >>
>> >>
>> https://github.com/cpsolver/VoteFair-ranking-cpp/blob/master/rcipe_stv.cpp
>> >>  When shared preference levels are encountered,
>> >> //  the ballots are transfered in "whole" numbers,
>> >> //  not by splitting a ballot into fractional or
>> >> //  decimal portions.  For example, during a
>> >> //  counting cycle, if there are two ballots that
>> >> //  rank candidates numbered 1 and 2 at the same
>> >> //  highest ranking level, one of the ballots will
>> >> //  transfer to candidate 1 and the other ballot
>> >> //  will transfer to candidate 2.
>> >> //
>> >
>> > Assuming you can pair up all the "over-voting" ballots in this way,
>> this
>> > seems to be equivalent to dividing the votes up into equal fractions
>> > that sum to 1. But what if you can't pair them all off, or someone
>> votes
>> > more than two candidates at the same ranking level?
>> >
>> > I didn't express myself quite clearly enough. The "complex procedure" I
>> > referred is the one I, not you, suggest.  I didn't bother describing it.
>> >
>> > I think that if we allow above-bottom equal-ranking in IRV or Benham,
>> > then if among remaining candidates some ballots rank more than one
>> > candidate equal-top then we make a provisional order of the candidates
>> > by counting those ballots as equal fractions summing to 1.
>> > (A=B counts as half a vote to each of A and B, A=B=C counts as a third
>> > of a vote to each of A and B and C, and so on.  Now it would be fine
>> for
>> > this to be the final order for deciding which candidate to next
>> > eliminate were it not for the fact that it makes Push-over strategising
>> > easier.)  Then we count the equal top (among remaining candidates)
>> > ballots again, this time they give a whole vote to whichever of the
>> ones
>> > they equal rank to the one that was highest in the provisional order.
>> > (So an A=B ballot gives a whole vote to whichever of A and B was higher
>> > in the provisional order, and of course nothing to B.)
>> >
>> > This is fully in the spirit of the Single Transferable Vote but I think
>> > you will agree that it is complex. I don't think allowing above-bottom
>> > equal-ranking in those methods is so important, nor do I think there
>> > would be any significant demand for that from voters, so I don't
>> > advocate allowing it for those methods.
>> >
>> >> I'm bothered by the failures in Burlington and Alaska.  But those were
>> >> not just Condorcet failures.  They also were IIA failures,
>> >> center-squeeze failures, etc.
>> > It is the most basic theory that all remotely reasonable methods fail
>> > IIA, so why are we even mentioning that?  And isn't "center-squeeze"
>> > just a vague concept used in anti-IRV propaganda? What is the precise
>> > definition of a "center-squeeze failure"?
>> >
>> > Your approach is like that of a quite bad and sloppy designer of a car
>> > or a plane. Every time it crashes you just stick another kludge on it
>> > designed to only guard against another crash just like the most recent
>> one.
>> >
>> > Chris B.
>> >
>> > *Richard, the VoteFair guy*electionmethods at votefair.org
>> > <mailto:election-methods%40lists.electorama.com
>> ?Subject=Re%3A%20%5BEM%5D%20Poll%2C%20preliminary%20ballots&In-Reply-To=%3C632ea079-e977-441c-bf19-41522d2d8eee%
>> 40votefair.org%3E>
>> > /Sat Apr 20 10:30:57 PDT 2024/
>> >
>> >
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >
>> > On 4/19/2024 1:15 AM, Chris Benham wrote:
>> >
>> >   > ... It is not garbage like STAR.
>> >   > ...
>> >   > ... STAR is a horrible method that is very highly
>> >   > vulnerable to both Compromise and Pushover.
>> >
>> > Horrible, yes.  Garbage, no, because it's a clever way to improve
>> > single-winner score voting.  It's useful among friends when voting is
>> > not anonymous.  Or when "dishonest" exaggeration cannot be hidden.
>> >
>> >   > If there are "failure types" in need of names, what's stopping you
>> from
>> >   > giving them names? ...
>> >
>> > Time and money.  Unlike two STAR promoters, the folks at FairVote, and
>> > academic professors, I'm not getting paid to promote or advance
>> > election-method reform.
>> >
>> >   >>   Approval voting requires tactical voting.  There's no way to
>> avoid it.
>> >   > The strategic burden on the voter is certainly no greater than with
>> >   > FPP.  ...
>> >
>> > Our goal is to rise way above plurality.  Accepting limitations of
>> > plurality is unnecessary.
>> >
>> > Why impose any extra strategic burden on the voter?
>> >
>> >   >> Another difference from IRV is about what FairVote calls
>> "overvotes."
>> >   >> RCIPE counts them correctly.  ...
>> >   > I think it is reasonable to treat ballots that (against the ballot
>> >   > rules) equal-rank above bottom as though they truncated at that
>> point.
>> >   > Doing otherwise (as I think you advocate) without a quite complex
>> >   > procedure I suggest makes the method a bit more vulnerable to
>> Push-over
>> >   > strategy.
>> >
>> > I and most voters want to be able to rank an evil candidate -- Gollum,
>> > Voldemoron, etc. -- below all other candidates.  Truncation means the
>> > evil candidate is as acceptable as other "bad" candidates.
>> >
>> > I've written code that correctly counts so-called "overvotes."  It's not
>> > a "complex procedure":
>> >
>> >
>> https://github.com/cpsolver/VoteFair-ranking-cpp/blob/master/rcipe_stv.cpp
>> >
>> >   >> Avoiding any failures in REAL elections is what I'm "buying" by
>> >   >> advocating RCIPE instead of IRV.
>> >   > I'm still baffled as to why, if you don't like Condorcet failures,
>> you
>> >   > don't simply advocate a Condorcet method. How is the argument "Let's
>> >   > lose strict compliance with several criteria met by IRV so that we
>> can
>> >   > somewhat more often elect the Condorcet winner" better than
>> >   > "Let's lose strict compliance with several criteria met by IRV so
>> that
>> >   > we can ALWAYS elect the Condorcet winner"??
>> >
>> > I'm bothered by the failures in Burlington and Alaska.  But those were
>> > not just Condorcet failures.  They also were IIA failures,
>> > center-squeeze failures, etc.
>> >
>> > I want fewer failures in real elections.  I don't care about convoluted
>> > scenarios that would never occur in a real election.
>> >
>> > Again, thank you for this useful discussion.  I appreciate that you
>> > really want to understand why I rank some methods better than others.
>> >
>> > Richard Fobes
>> > The VoteFair guy
>> >
>> >
>> > ----
>> > Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
>> info
>> ----
>> Election-Methods mailing list - see https://electorama.com/em for list
>> info
>>
> ----
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